CakePHP Tips

CakePHP themes 1 minute HOWTO

2009-06-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

Did you that it only takes a minute to start using themes for your CakePHP application? No? It's just these steps you need to start using themes:

1. In your (app)controller: var $view = 'Theme';
2. In your (app)controller: var $theme = 'orange';
3. Or from a function: $this->theme = 'orange';

That's it! You can now create custom views and layouts for this theme under /app/views/themed/orange. Below that folder you should use the same structure as under /app/views. For example, create a file /app/views/themed/orange/layouts/default.ctp.

So, if theme-specific files exist in themed folders, these will be used, else, CakePHP switched back to the default layouts and views.

You can also create custom CSS and JS files under /app/webroot/themed/orange/css and /app/webroot/themed/orange/js.

Pretty easy huh...

Did you already use themes?

Adobe Browserlab for webdevelopers

2009-06-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

Adobe has created Browserlab. It seems to be some kind of browsershots.org and it claims to be realtime. Probably worth trying. Take a look!

Tiny CakePHP Plugin

2009-06-03T02:36:00.000-07:00

Tim Trice has released a plugin to shorten urls. This enables you to create your own url shortener like tinyurl.

Link: http://www.timtrice.com/tiny-cakephp-plugin/

Your website is finished and released, now what?

2009-03-29T09:47:00.001-07:00

So, you finished your CakePHP programming work on your website en your site has just gone live!! Great, whoohoo! But, if you think you can go to sleep you are wrong, much wrong. You have just started, and you should focus on some other things.

One of those things is something like Google Analytics. Always collect statistics from your website from the start. When you have created a Google Analytics account and embedded the code in your pages, your data will grow as visitors come to your site.

After a few days or weeks you will be able to some analysis on your site. What pages do people like? What is the bounce rate of my webpages? Also write down the goals you want your visitors to reach. For example, you want your visitors to sign-up for your free service. Assign a goal in your analytics account to the confirm page of this process and add the other form pages to the preceeding funnel. You'll be able to see how many visitors exit the funnel before they reach the goal.

So, start analyzing your website, even if it is only for fifteen minutes a day!

And, go the Google Conversion University for some great presentations on this topic.

If you are finished and got your Google Analytics Individual Qualification, have a look at this old school stuff they brought to the iPhone.

CakePHP 1.2.2 has been released

2009-03-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's still pretty hot news, CakePHP 1.2.2 has been released... go check it out on http://cakephp.org/. Do it! Now!

WhoDidIt behavior: who did what?!

2009-03-02T09:25:00.000-08:00

Daniel Vecchiato has written the WhoDidIt behavior for your CakePHP models. Sounds great, he describes it as:

WhoDidIt behavior is useful for tracking who has created and modified records: automagically!

It works like created and modified fields. It's great for doing some logging on which user has created certain records and who is the last person to modify a certain record. Definitely a great addition and probably something for CakePHP 1.3?

Testing your website on an iPhone, without an iPhone

2009-03-02T07:59:00.000-08:00

If you are curious how you're freshly developed websites look on an iPhone, you can check http://www.testiphone.com/.

Personally, I prefer Apple's official iPhone simulator, from the iPhone SDK.

How many of you did already develop websites for the iPhone? Just let me know...

Apple releases Safari 4 beta

2009-02-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

Apple has released Safari 4 beta today. It has some nice new features like Top Sites and Cover Flow. They also use the new Nitro engine and claim to be much faster then Google Chrome and the upcoming Firefox 3.1 (beta).

To try it, I visited a website which I am developing using CakePHP and lots of jQuery for some Ajax stuff and visual effects. Safari renders this page very fast, it feels good.

One of the other features I would like to try are the updated developer tools.

You can download Safari 4 here.

jQuery 1.3.2 has been released

2009-02-23T01:26:00.000-08:00

jQuery 1.3.2 has been released. It has some significant speed improvements, especially in IE6. Read the changelog.

Watch CakePHP on Twitter

2009-02-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

If you want to know what others do with CakePHP or what they think about it, watch http://search.twitter.com/search?q=cakephp. Don't start watching this all day long, life's too short for that.

Post you're favorite tweets below.

Twittermail @ the Bakery

2009-02-06T02:00:00.002-08:00

One of the guys from Twittermail has written a nice article on how they have rewritten Twittermail within 48 hours. They write about security, scalability and localization.

What projects did you do where you had to think about these things? Did you write any article like this? Let us know please.

Review: CakePHP Application Development

2009-01-22T09:35:00.002-08:00

Well, here I am, trying to write my first book review ever. It don't think it will be the best review ever, so please don't review my review... Anyway, I read a copy of CakePHP Application Development published by Packt Publishing and will post my thoughts below.

The book is divided into a few parts. In the first part, an introduction to CakePHP is given, followed by a little example application, CakeTooDoo. After that, a more in-depth explanation is given about Models, Controllers and Views. Then, you're taken to the shell and do some baking before the last part, which is about building an example application called Quickwall.

Introduction
The introduction explains What CakePHP is and describes the advantages of using a framework like CakePHP. Also, the MVC Pattern is explained and you are introduced to the most commonly used functionalities of CakePHP, like validation. Next, you are going to download and install CakePHP. Of course, you need Apache and Mysql installed on your machine. You could use something like WAMP or XAMPP if you haven't already got those installed.

CakeTooDoo
After the introduction, you will setup a simple to-do-list-application. During this, you will get a little view of how CakePHP works. Some basic Models, Controllers and Views are created. The authors call this part a quick rollercoaster ride through the important aspects of CakePHP. And that's correct, you get to know some important stuff about it.

Models, Controllers and Views and the shell
....Why is everyone talking about MVC while we start with the Model and end up with the View? Am I missing something?

Ok, back on topic... In chapters 4-8, you get a more in-depth look at Models, Controllers and Views. It is explained how CakePHP interacts with your database through models, how models are related or can be related to each other, how to manipulate data, write controllers and create an interface for your end users through layouts and views.

When you understand how Models, Views and Controllers work, you wil be introduced to the Shell in the next chapter. The shell will give you the ability to kickstart your development or quickly create prototypes of your application. This chapter is a very short course to let you bake a cake.

Quickwall
So, you have learnt some things... I guess, and you are ready to bake a cake. The next cake is called Quickwall, an application where you can submit any question and get those questions answered. Hey, can anybody answer my question about MVC? Quickwall will not only let you bake a Cake, but also put some nice Dr. Oetker stuff on it like validation, ajax and disco-dip.

If you have a little bit experience in using CakePHP, these chapters will be the most interesting, as this is a real world example with authentication, ajax, rss and pagination.

Conclusion:
CakePHP Application Development starts at the very basics of CakePHP. Probably this book works best for developers who are already using PHP, but who are interested in CakePHP. If you develop your stuff the old way and you want to DRY things up, try CakePHP. For those developers, this book can be an interesting start. Especially after the introduction and explanation of MVC, when you are building the Quickwall application.

I like the way it is build up, you create some stuff, and after that, in the "What has happened?" parts, they explain ehm... what has happened. That's pretty clear.

For developers who already have experience in CakePHP and now how to do stuff like rss and pagination, this probably isn't the right choice. Does anyone no of good CakePHP books at another level, for the more experienced bakers?

If you want to start developing with CakePHP and want to buy a book to read and to try some sample applications, CakePHP Application Development might be a good choice for you.

Nice slideshare presentation about PHP Frameworks

2009-01-13T08:47:00.002-08:00

Rasmus, Think Again! Agile Framework == Happy Php Developer

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: ror rails)

Some useful articles

2009-01-09T05:30:00.002-08:00

Last week, some interesting articles have entered my browser history, they might be interesting for you, so go have a look.

Where should my code go? (Articles) | The Bakery, Everything CakePHP

Building a CakePHP web-application in 2 months, part time

CakePHP Best Practices: Fat Models and Skinny Controllers

10 Steps to Becoming a Professional Web Developer

Breaking news: CakePHP 1.2 has been released!

2008-12-27T02:32:00.002-08:00

What did the guys from CakePHP 1.2 do during these Christmas days? Well, they have been working hard to make CakePHP 1.2 final. It's finished, read the announcement at http://bakery.cakephp.org/articles/view/the-gift-of-1-2-final.

Thanks guys, for getting this thing done, I guess a new era for PHP frameworks has started at the end of the year.

Thanks roryy for notifying us about the release.

Most of you will already be downloading or testing 1.2, for everyone else (interested in soccer), watch this.

Best wishes to everyone the upcoming 2009!

CakePHP 1.2 release candidate 4

2008-12-22T06:18:00.002-08:00

Hey, did you already notice that CakePHP 1.2 RC4 was released?

Automatic inclusion of Javascript in CakePHP

2008-12-17T06:29:00.002-08:00

Earlier, I wrote about $scripts_for_layout and I was looking for a solution to automatically load js files into your layout. Well, I think the solution might be in this presentation from Felix Geisendorfer. At slide 20 he starts talking about this.

Has anyone seen this, or did you already try it?

Let us know!

Preview: ModelBaker (OSX) - Rapid Application Development for CakePHP

2008-12-01T03:33:00.002-08:00

A few weeks ago, I was notified about ModelBaker by WidgetPress. The homepage made me quite curious, as they promise to be able to rapidly develop CakePHP applications from an OSX desktop application. Take a look at the screenshots and screencasts on their website. Or, take a look below, this is the part of the application where you describe your database.

As you can see, you enter the tables you want to use, the attributes validation and even relationships. ModelBaker gives you an overview about your tables and their relationship. Based on your information, the Models, Controllers and Views are automatically created. You can even add another model, User to use out-of-the-box authentication in your application.

You can add more helpers or components to be used in your application or even choose a template to give your application some nice looks. And hey, why not develop your application for the iPhone? - How should I do that? That would be taking hours or even days! - Not anymore, just enable 'Include iPhone & iPod Touch version of web application' and you're ready to go.

[caption id="attachment_83" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="screencast modelbaker"][/caption]

ModelBaker is still in development, 1.0 should be released within a few weeks. WidgetPress will be at MacWorld next month. I am looking forward to the first release, I guess this product will enable beginners to develop some basic wep applications en give professional users the ability to develop prototypes very rapidly.

PHP frameworks

2008-11-13T11:43:00.002-08:00

Today I visited PHP frameworks and noticed a few PHP frameworks I didn't know yet. I know the mainstream frameworks are CakePHP, Zend, Symfony and CodeIgniter, but I saw some new ones I haven't heard of before, like Zoop, Prado, Yii and Akelos. Also, I read about Kohana.

I tried to get an overview of each framework, also the ones I already tried or heard about. The problem with this is that I am confused. I have used CakePHP for quite some projects and most of the time, it's great. But, I got the feeling there are some things returning in each or some projects for which CakePHP hasn't got the perfect solution.

CakePHP and most of the other frameworks are great for doing some database connection and helping you starting a blog in 15 or 20 minutes, but what's next? Does one of these frameworks have a killer feature?

I downloaded some of these frameworks and did a little testing. Little, not much, so everything I write down here is not based on some scientific report, but its just MHO.

There are a few frameworks I would like to test some more. Like Yii, Akelos, CodeIgniter and Kohana. Yii sounds great. Akelos seems to have a killer feature for me, the admin plugin. This enables me to create a database with my own tables (like CakePHP) but, extend this in a few minutes with a complete user/roles system including a great frontend. Akelos is definitely worth a few of your minutes.

[caption id="attachment_73" align="center" width="300" caption="Screenshot of Akelos admin plugin"][/caption]

This is it for now, maybe I'll be back with some more information on these frameworks, in case you have any experience you want to share the world, let us know!

Website usability testing

2008-11-07T02:17:00.002-08:00

While looking into some Twitter accounts this morning, I came across a link to Silverback which was posted by quinns. It claims to be an application for Guerilla (or Gorrilla?) usability testing. The application can be used to test software or websites.
The concept is quite simple. On your Mac with builtin iSight, you have your user test your application or website while you record his or hers face. Silverback captures screen and iSight and combines the two in one movie. Movies are sessions stored in projects. The resulting movie doesn't create an eye-tracking heatmap, but it gives you an idea of the users experience. The concept is shown below. Download Silverback here.

Check it out: DebugKit for CakePHP

2008-10-30T05:06:00.002-07:00

I just found in my RSS feeds. It describes a very handy CakePHP plugin. DebugKit shows a toolbar in your application with information about the session, sql, load time and more.

Exclude content from caching

2008-10-16T03:40:00.002-07:00

I never took an in-depth view on caching in CakePHP, but I'm working on an application in which I could use some extra speed.

Just found a way to exclude some content from caching in CakePHP.

SEO your CakePHP application

2008-10-06T07:41:00.002-07:00

I am Search Engine Optimizing an older CakePHP application. When I started, I was looking for a solution in .htaccess, but that's not the right way.

Your .htaccess is already set up to have CakePHP process all incoming URLs. It already knows what to do with your controllers and actions. The magic word is routing. Routing is your friend when you want to optimize your URLs.

Of course, when you develop a new CakePHP app, be sure to think about SEO and how your URLs will look like. If your app is finished, and your URLs don't seem very friendly use routing.

For example, if your current url is http://www.example.com/games/view/A56789 and you want to use http://www.example.com/games/platform/prince-of-persia.html, you could solve it like this:

Your controller is the games_controller, the function is view().

Add this to routes.php:

$Route->connect('/games/*', array('controller' => 'games', 'action' => 'view'));

So, when you call http://www.example.com/games/platform/prince-of-persia.html, the function view within games_controller will be called with two parameters, the first one is platform, the second is prince-of-persia.

You have to rewrite your function to show the right data. For example forget the first parameter, and use the second to identify the record in your database.

Don't forget to build your sitemap, maybe that will be the next article :)

-- Guillaume was digging in the source code of CakePHP and found: http://api.cakephp.org/inflector_8php-source.html#l00431

Build your own search engine in PHP

2008-04-04T02:04:00.002-07:00

Do you know how to build your own search engine in PHP? It is not that hard, because there are already some ready-to-use pieces, like Lucene. You just have to think how you want your search engine to work exactly and build the pieces together.

Of course, you can't do in 15 minutes what others took years, but I want to give you just a few hints of how to create your own search functionality. You could use this to index the web, and if you do, let me know so I can stop using Google.

But of course, this stuff can also be used to create your own vertical or horizontal search engine. The magic word is Lucene.

Hey, I'm following livestream of The Next Web, for which day 2 will start at 10:30. So, read on and try writing some cool things, or watch the stream for some inspiration (many startups with short presentations) and get back later to convert your idea to reality.

So what is this about? Recently, I wrote an article of using the Zend Framework in CakePHP. This is pretty easy, and I'm still trying Zend components for use in CakePHP. I wrote a little example site (locally) at which you can login using your openID and view some del.ici.ous stuff.

Yesterday, I tried Zend_Search_Lucene. I just gave it a try, because it triggered my curiosity.

Of course, you first have to integrate the Zend Framework in your CakePHP installation. I assume you already have a controller. In that controller, create a function search:


function search($query = "cake") {
		vendor('Zend/Search/Lucene');

		if ($query == "build") {
			$index = Zend_Search_Lucene::create('/tmp/my-index');

			$url = "http://cakephp.agoris.nl/";
			$doc = Zend_Search_Lucene_Document_Html::loadHTMLFile($url);
			$doc->addField(Zend_Search_Lucene_Field::Text('url', $url));
			$index->addDocument($doc);

			$i = 1;
			foreach($doc->getLinks() as $link) {
					$current_doc = Zend_Search_Lucene_Document_Html::loadHTMLFile($url.$link);
					$current_doc->addField(Zend_Search_Lucene_Field::Text('url', $url.$link));
					echo "{$link}
";
					$index->addDocument($current_doc);
					$i++;
					if ($i >= 10) break;
			}
		}

		
		$index = Zend_Search_Lucene::open('/tmp/my-index');
		$hits = $index->find($query);
		$this->set('hits', $hits);

	}

Two things, you create the index by calling /controller/search/build. The first URL is opened and added to the index. The first ten links in that page are also analyzed and add to the index.

After you build your index, use it like /controller/search/php.

So, this is a very short example of how to use CakePHP and the Zend Framework to create your own searchable index. You could use it to create your own search engine for the web, your website, or any other application with search functionality.

Want me to help implementing this in your application? Just contact me!

jQuery example overview

2008-03-28T05:32:00.002-07:00

I just found a page from Mathias Bank with 50 jQuery examples. Might be interesting for anyone who is interested in using jQuery in CakePHP. Definitely worth a few of your minutes... or maybe more :)

HOWTO Use Zend Framework in CakePHP

2008-03-20T05:30:00.002-07:00

This article will describe shortly how you can extend the power of CakePHP using the Zend Framework. I know, earlier this week I talked about war when writing about these two. But, reactions from Wil and Richard changed my mind a little bit. Richard mentioned about the possibility to use Zend Components within CakePHP. I tested this for myself and it took me only a few minutes.

The Zend Framework seems a little bit more flexible in a way that you choose for yourself about which components you use and which you don't use. CakePHP has a certain pattern in which you have to develop your applications. CakePHP is the framework I choose and like to work with. But, it would be handy if it could be easier to integrate with webservices or create PDFs etc. It is possible, but you have to look for the right component. The Zend Frameworks has many components built-in. Like support for Flickr and Delicious. I tried these two and that works ok.

Ok, start the engines...

Download and install CakePHP and create a controller to use, for example main_controller.php

Download the Zend Framework 1.5 and extract it. Put the folder library/Zend in app/vendors so you have app/vendors/Zend/Service/ etc...

Create a function index in your controller. Don't forget to fill in your Flickr API Key


function index() {
		define('MY_API_KEY', 'yourkeyhere');

		$path = APP.'/vendors';
		set_include_path(get_include_path() . PATH_SEPARATOR . $path);
		vendor('Zend/Service/Flickr');

		$flickr = new Zend_Service_Flickr(MY_API_KEY);
		$results = $flickr->tagSearch('zend');
		$this->set('images', $results);
}

And put in your index.ctp view:


< ?php foreach ($images as $image): ?>
	< ?php echo $html->image($image->Thumbnail->uri); ?>
	< ?php echo "{$image->title}\n"; ?>
< ?php endforeach; ?>

Open /main/index in your browser

I tried this with Del.icio.us also and it works great. Let us know if you tried other components and what the results are!

Just modified code a little thanks to Richard.

Have a look at http://framework.zend.com/wiki/display/ZFPROP/Home. They are working on more stuff. For example a Twitter component. Works too, but you have to:

vendor('Zend/Rest/Client');
vendor('Zend/Service/Twitter');

Zend framework 1.5 released, good?

2008-03-17T19:15:00.002-07:00

Zend has released version 1.5 of their framework. I must admit I never really tried it, but the release of the new version made me curious about it. My goal is to develop high quality web applications and I want to use DRYA (don't repeat yourself or another - just thought about that, why would anyone reinvent the weel). I just took a look at their press release and noticed that for at least one person his wildest dreams are coming true...

The first thing that interests me is that they claim to have some contribution by Google and Microsoft. Of course, this sounds great, and I think it is something that is necessary for a framework to survive. But, could it also be a threat? Is CakePHP a less commercial framework and more open? I can do with CakePHP whatever I want. There are lots of great components and I can easily integrate or write other solutions. Zend framework 1.5 has support for OpenID and LDAP and supports APIs of YouTube, Flickr and Amazon. From their Press release:

* Forms – Zend Framework now supports forms, including Ajax usage patterns that make building and using web-based forms much easier.
* Layout and view – Layout support and view enhancements make it easier than ever to implement a consistent look and feel throughout PHP applications and save developers time by keeping web application views componentized.
* LDAP authentication – Zend Framework now comes with enterprise-ready authentication through support for LDAP technology.
* Lucene search engine – Now it is possible to implement advanced queries using wildcards, date ranges, and fuzzy searches from within a Zend Framework application.
* Extended Ajax support – Zend Framework’s server-side support for Ajax with action helpers to automate Ajax detection and responses now make programming using JavaScript & PHP much easier.
* UTF-8 character sets in Adobe PDF creation – Zend Framework’s PDF support has been enhanced to enable non-Latin character sets such as Kanji, Cyrillic, and many others.
* Google GData web services – Significant enhancements to Google Data services now make it easier than ever to build web applications that leverage the Google application network. New in Zend Framework 1.5 is support for upload and write capabilities to Google YouTube.

I think we will see a new kind of war, like we had in the past with our browsers. Now, CakePHP and Zend will both try to innovate (or copy) and get the largest market share. Maybe, some others will get into this war too, but these two will be mainstream. I think this will result in better frameworks which will be ready for Web 3.0. They are not right now, but I predict and their future improvements will focus on Web 3.0 stuff to make the Semantic Web reachable for Web developers like me.

Follow Zend framework and CakePHP on Google Trends (blue is CakePHP, red is Zend Framework):

CakePHP RSS component and SMS component@the Bakery

2008-03-14T15:05:00.002-07:00

A few days ago two interesting articles were posted at the Bakery. One is about an SMS component and another about an RSS component for use in CakePHP.

Doug Bromley wrote an article about integrating the Clickatell SMS service in your application with his component. Quite cool. You can enhance your app with sending SMS messages. We have used the SMS service of ClubMessage in one of our applications. Receiving messages is also possible with ClubMessage (must be too @ Clickatell, but I never tried this). Anyway, the article is a good start if you want to turbocharge your application with SMS possibilities. Imagine writing your own Twitter service. Send messages to your users cellphones, and have them respond also by SMS. Or, write your own SMS quiz or anything you can imagine. Anyway, this is cool and handy. If you want to know how we connected Cake to ClubMessage, don't hesitate to contact us.

The other article is written by Jimmy. He writes about a component to easily use lastRSS to read RSS feeds. It was written for 1.1 but should work in 1.2. Shouldn't this be standard functionality in 1.2? Or is it and am I a very bad reader? If I am, let me know, but not too hard, I have feelings too...

CakePHP 1.2 or 1.1, which version do you use?

2008-03-14T11:49:00.002-07:00

I was wondering which version of CakePHP is mainstream right now. For about two or three months I started using CakePHP version 1.2 for all of my projects, and I know it is still in beta. I wouldn't use closed source software beta versions for projects like this, but the feeling that I can view and modify the code if necessary gives me enough trust bin 1.2. Of course, also the new options help in this decision.

How are your feelings about this? Please leave a comment and let me and other users know how you think about this.

CakePHP FAQ and Best Practices

2008-03-07T17:41:00.002-08:00

So, a few months ago I added to pages to this website. One for a CakePHP FAQ and another to write something about CakePHP Best Practices, or what works best for me. I would like to have other people leave their answers or ideas too, so I am looking for an option to have those pages edited by everyone, like a Wiki.

I have not found such an option in Wordpress, and was looking for a plugin, but I do not have found any. So, can anybody point me to a plugin or idea how to solve this? Or, do I have to write something like that for myself?

Also, I thought about SEO lately, which I am also interested in. Is CakePHP SEO friendly by itself? I think it is as much SEO friendly as the programmer writing the application, but maybe we could create some functionality as a helper or something to ehm help...

On the other hand, I'm thinking about writing an online application which helps you to automate some SEO tasks. Some kind of SEO quick scan for a given website. Maybe I'll work this out. Keep you informed. For now I'm going to start the weekend. I'll be back.

CakePHP vs Zend Framework comparison

2008-03-05T06:49:00.002-08:00

Chad wrote an interesting comparison between CakePHP and the Zend Framework. He has made an overview of the main differences between the both frameworks for now. My first look at his comparison was a little more points for the Zend Framework, but in his conclusion... Hmmm, I'm not gonna spoil this...

Read it for yourself here.

How to use $scripts_for_layout

2008-03-04T08:59:00.002-08:00

Finally discovered how $scripts_for_layout works.

I have put

< ?php echo $javascript->link('jtip', false); ?>

in my view. False just means do not put it here, but put it where $scripts_for_layout is in my layout, so in the header.

Still looking for a way to have js scripts automatically included. It exists, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for... Anyone?

Nice Slideshare presentation about CakePHP

2008-03-04T08:18:00.002-08:00

Can't get it shown here. But gwoo has a nice presentation about CakePHP 1.2. He gives you an overview of CakePHP and especially 1.2. Have a look at it, it's definitely worth your minutes and it will not hurt you.

Go ahead and view it here.

New theme

2008-03-03T19:31:00.002-08:00

Hi, I just changed to a new theme... I needed something fresh here. Soon I will add new posts here about CakePHP 1.2. I also included some new plugins (thanks to Joost de Valk). Thanks for the theme goes to http://www.nodethirtythree.com/.

You may follow me on Twitter (peasant_) or not, I'll be back with some new posts about CakePHP and maybe start a new weblog about the web (2.0, 3.0, whatever) and what I think is interesting.

Please let me know what you like or dislike or if you have any ideas for the CakePHP FAQ or Best Practices. I'm also looking for a Wiki Wordpress plugin to modify those pages.

Ajax is so easy...

2008-02-19T06:38:00.002-08:00

Ok, download CakePHP 1.2 and create a basic website with some scaffolding or something. Include Prototype or jQuery and think about a part of your page you want to replace with the result of an Ajax request.

Suppose you have a scaffolded list of customers. When you press the View link, Cake redirects you to customers/view/123. You can catch the link and call some Javascript to load the result of customers/view/123 in a div on your index page. Quite easy, but you now see your header twice. Not cool. Hmmm....

Try to load the component RequestHandler.

Hey Cool! My layout is gone and my Ajax function does what I want.

Actually, your layout is not gone, but Cake detects that the view was loaded from an Xmlhttprequest (ajax) and uses the Ajax layout instead of the default.

Try this at home!

Adding a filter to scaffolded tables

2008-02-11T15:41:00.002-08:00

I just wrote a start for a filter which I can easily add above scaffolded tables. Scaffolding is great, but I want a form above to limit the number on results based on my parameters. It is not finished, but I just post what I have, any tips, let me know.

Ok, it uses a helper and a component.

Suppose you have a tables projects and you use paginate in your index() function in your controller. Change it to:

$this->set('projects', $this->paginate(null, $this->Activeview->getConditions($this->params)));

This will use your parameters from the form in your view to fetch the records based on your limitations.

In your view, for example use:

echo $activeview->filter('projects', array(
	"name" => __('Name', true),
	"targetgroup" => __('Doelgroep', true)
	));

or search in related tables:

echo $activeview->filter('communication', array(
	"Person.surname" => __('Person', true),
	"note" => __('Note', true)
	));

Let me know what you think about this.

jQuery worth trying

2008-02-08T07:03:00.002-08:00

This is a very short post, but I wanted to tell you about jQuery. I tried it earlier this week in a new CakePHP 1.2 project. Just included jquery.js in my layout and used the code below to have a toggle effect. With Mootools I always needed much more code to achieve this effect.

Try this example.

Let me know what you think of this!

Nice article on using scriptacolous

2008-01-04T07:40:00.002-08:00

Jan Boonen wrote a nice article on using Scriptacolous effects in CakePHP 1.2:

CakePHP's AJAX helper offers you direct access to the Sciptaculous library. If you have little AJAX experience, the usage of this helper might seem overwhelming. It is not, the largest part of the job is creating good views.

Check it out!

Pushing your app to production

2008-01-03T07:12:00.002-08:00

Sean posted a comment here about an article he wrote about pushing a CakePHP application to production. He makes a few modifications to have CakePHP determine its location automatically and uses a script and ncftp to upload the latest trunk from subversion to the production environment.

Check out the script and his article on his weblog.

Thanks, Sean!

Happy new year!

2008-01-02T08:10:00.002-08:00

Best wishes for 2008 for everyone! The guys at CakePHP started with new production and development versions, so check out the site.

Happy developing!

Programming Conventions

2007-12-13T10:37:00.002-08:00

Hey,

Did you ever had a look at the CakePHP Conventions? I use CakePHP also to have the same directory structure in all of my projects, but it would be much more readable if you write your code using these conventions. What do you think about conventions like this? How do you bring structure to your projects?

Also, I'm looking for the best way to use Trac and Subversion in my projects. Does anyone have any tips? Is it possible to export a SVN repository to an FTP location?

Build a photo gallery with CakePHP and Flickr

2007-12-11T07:46:00.002-08:00

This is a nice howto from Jonathan Snook on building a photogallery with CakePHP and Flickr.

Within a few minutes and with a few lines of code and a few components he explains how you can do this, and even make use of a Lightbox to show the images. Have fun!

Use the Pages controller for static pages

2007-12-11T06:45:00.002-08:00

You can use the pages controller for static pages like /pages/about or /pages/contact. This is a built-in controller which has some other possibilities, described at the Bakery.

New layout

2007-12-10T11:48:00.002-08:00

Hey, I'm back with a new layout. I hope to write some posts soon, so keep watching this site. Also, I am looking for something combining twitter and this weblog. For example, when I write this, I want my twitter feed to be updated... guess I have to write something myself.

Soft delete records, some kind of trash...

2007-11-14T14:53:00.002-08:00

Mariano Iglesias wrote an article on the Bakery about Soft deleting records in CakePHP.

When you use soft delete behaviour of your models you don't actually delete records, but give them some kind of 'deleted' state. You can use this as a sort of Archive. Suppose you have many customers, but a lot of them are not active customers anymore (not good man, keep selling). You can give them a soft delete tag to have your front end only show active customers. You can have a special archive to still view the records containing information on old customers. And, they can become active again without having to fill all dat again.

Read the article at the Bakery

CakePHP and MSSQL

2007-11-08T13:41:00.002-08:00

It should be possible to have CakePHP directly talking to a Microsoft SQL server, but I don't know how and didn't try it. The advantage of talking directly to MSSQL is that you can use the standard Models.

In our situation we didn't have the ability to let Cake directly connect to Microsoft SQL server and we needed some other solution. Our frontend and backend are on different locations so we needed to be creative. In this situation we chose to use SQLXML on our Microsoft SQL server and directly send our queries to SQLXML. The results are parsed by a Vendor we wrote and are stored in an array. I can't give you the exact code, but just have a look at Microsofts SQLXML for IIS and try to execute some queries via a URL.

Use Google Maps in CakePHP

2007-11-08T07:07:00.002-08:00

I found an interesting article from Mahmoud Lababidi at the Bakery on integrating Google Maps in your CakePHP application.

In five steps, Mahmoud explains how to use his modified version of gwoo's Google Helper class and his own GoogleGeo class to write an application which shows a Google Map and locations from your database. You can find the result here.

Beautiful PHP thumbnail class useful as vendor in CakePHP

2007-11-07T13:20:00.002-08:00

I found a very handy thumbnailer class on written by Ian Selby. This class lets you resize your image, but it is also capable of creating the popular Apple Reflection effect.

You can very easily use this class to use it as a vendor in CakePHP.

Have fun!

Use helpers in your application

2007-10-29T09:28:00.002-07:00

It is advised to make use of helpers in your application. Your code becomes clean and more flexible because the helpers are short and clear, and they handle the paths to the file referenced. For example, to quickly show an image in your view, use:


< ?= $html->image('9.jpg') ?>

Global functions and constants

2007-10-05T19:42:00.002-07:00

describes some useful functions and constants. For example COMPRESS_CSS. If COMPRESS_CSS is set to true, your style sheets are compressed on output. This can be useful on websites where you need a high performance. Don't forget to make /var/cache writable for the webserver and use Controller::cssTag();

findAllBy is cool!

2007-10-02T11:26:00.002-07:00

Suppose you have a field name in your database called type. CakePHP will automagically add a new function called findAllByType. For example, you can try: findAllByType('customer'); to find all fields with type=customer.

From the CakePHP manual:

* findAllBy
* string $value

These magic functions can be used as a shortcut to search your tables for a row given a certain field, and a certain value. Just tack on the name of the field you wish to search, and CamelCase it. Examples (as used in a Controller) might be:
$this->Post->findByTitle('My First Blog Post');
$this->Author->findByLastName('Rogers');
$this->Property->findAllByState('AZ');
$this->Specimen->findAllByKingdom('Animalia');

The returned result is an array formatted just as would be from find() or findAll().

Basic Task list with Ajax

2007-10-01T21:44:00.002-07:00

Graham Bird has written a very nice tutorial on creating a Basic Task list with Ajax. Have a look at it here (http://grahambird.co.uk/cake/tutorials/ajax.php).

Make your code more readable

2007-09-27T14:44:00.002-07:00

Of course, you write comments with your code... But, you can also make it more readable and logical by following the CakePHP coding standards:

debug(mixed $var, boolean $showHtml = false) can make your life easier.

2007-09-27T10:42:00.002-07:00

Give convenience wrappers like e(), low(), up() and r() a try.

2007-09-27T08:44:00.002-07:00

Do not forget to secure your application and use Sanitize.

2007-09-26T15:23:00.002-07:00

After saving an object, you want to read or modify it directly, but you don't know the ID. Use the getLastInsertId function.

2007-09-26T11:51:00.002-07:00

If you want to know the contents of an array you can use the helper function pr($array); For example try pr($this->data);

2007-09-26T02:07:00.002-07:00

If you want real values instead of ids with a select tag, use a database field called name.

1969-12-31T16:59:00.011-08:00

Use database fields 'created' and 'modified' as DATETIME. Cake will automatically fill this information when you create or modify a record.

1969-12-31T16:59:00.010-08:00

You can use $recursive in your controller or findAll to get extra information from another level (another, not directly connected table)

1969-12-31T16:59:00.009-08:00

Want to create some static pages? Use the built-in pages controller.

1969-12-31T16:59:00.008-08:00